


i hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums

by prettylittlesestras



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, HSAU, High School, Pitch Perfect 2, Pitch Perfect 3, bechloe - Freeform, i don't even know how to write angst but here's somthing, its just a little of everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 15:27:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14358327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettylittlesestras/pseuds/prettylittlesestras
Summary: high school au where beca's a drummer in the band, and chloe's a singer in the choirthey develop a friendship via their daily walks home from school





	i hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums

Beca lets out a sigh of relief as she hears the final bell of the day ring. She ambles through the halls of Barden High aimlessly, absentmindedly kicking a balled up piece of paper down the hall as music blares through the speakers in her headphones, killing time before reporting to the auditorium at 3:30. She doesn’t want to be late, but there’s certainly no need in being 25 minutes early. 

She mosies toward her locker, stopping along the way to buy a bag of nacho cheese Doritos from the vending machine. She snacks on the chips as she walks and finds a lukewarm powerade in the bottom of her backpack from lunch a few days prior to wash them down with. She wastes as much time as she can, but she eventually makes her way to the band room. Beca gathers her things and heads over to the auditorium. 

Today was the first ever combined after-school practice with the band and chorus. It had been decided that the band and chorus would now be having combined concerts, so one month before each concert, they were to begin practicing together three days a week. 

Beca wasn’t really worried. She’d been drumming on pots and pans since she was old enough to hold a spoon, and she’d been using actual drums and drumsticks since she joined the band her sixth grade year. Drumming had always come easy to Beca; her hands moved swiftly and smoothly as she crafted sophisticated beats without much more than a simple thought. 

She arrives at the auditorium a few minutes ahead of most people and finds that her concert toms have already been set up. Lucky for her, all of the percussion instruments get set up by the stage crew, so she doesn’t have to worry about lugging around a case of drums that’s almost as big as she is. As she walks up the steps to the stage, she notices that she is one of only four people who have arrived so far. Two clarinet players are sitting side by side, quietly whispering back and forth, and one member of the choir, the first to arrive, is organizing his sheet music. 

Somewhere offstage, she hears someone yelling in a loud whisper, disrupting the quiet atmosphere onstage. She turns and sees a tall boy dressed in a full Barden High soccer uniform whisper-yelling at someone hidden behind a column that’s obscuring her view. She can tell, even by just the side of his face, that the guy is the ever-popular Tom Bailey. He’s the “Mr. Wonderful” of Barden High and captain of the soccer team even though he’s only a junior. He is seemingly loved by everyone, but something about him rubs Beca the wrong way. 

What a dick, Beca thinks as she turns and starts making sure her drums are secure and everything is ready to go for practice. She hears the boy storm off, his cleats clomping across the stage floor and down the stairs. She hears the deep breath of someone slightly offstage and turns to see none other than Chloe Beale. _So that’s who he was yelling at_ , Beca thinks with a slight pang in her stomach. 

She knows who Chloe is, but, then again, everyone knows who Chloe is. She’s the type of girl who, despite her popularity, takes the time to greet almost everyone she passes in the hallways and someone who gives personalized, bedazzled birthday cards to the lunch ladies. She’s that girl who is always exuberantly happy no matter the circumstance. Beca had known who Chloe was since third grade recess when she was swinging alone (and quite liked it that way), but Chloe insisted on swinging with her. She swore that swinging was somehow more fun with someone else beside you. Whether or not that was true, it had left an impression on Beca, just as Tom Bailey had left an impression on her just now. She didn’t know what he could have been yelling about, but she did know for certain that someone as sweet as Chloe Beale didn’t deserve a scolding that harsh. 

Practice soon begins, and to call it a mess is an understatement. The altos were struggling to hit their notes, and it sounded like the flute section was playing from an entirely different piece of music. Beca looked up every now and then to check on Chloe and make sure she was okay. She’s not normally the type of person to be aware of other people’s emotions, or even care about them for that matter, but she felt compelled to make sure that Chloe was okay after what she had witnessed before practice. 

She looks up near the end of practice to check on Chloe, and, strangely enough, Chloe is looking right back at her. Beca gives her a quick smile, and, feeling caught, she decides to keep her eyes on her drums for the rest of practice. Even without looking at her, Beca hears Chloe singing. Her voice isn’t hard to pick out; it’s easily the most beautiful voice in the entire choir, and, in that moment, she can’t remember ever hearing someone sing so well.

The rest of the practice crawls by slowly, the only bright spot being when the bass drum player, Ashley, tries to hit her drum, but her mallet flies out of her hand, skitters across the floor, and drops off of the front of the stage. Beca lets out a laugh under her breath, and that bit of comedic relief is enough to sustain her through the rest of the practice.

* * *

The next two practices are uneventful. The altos are seemingly improving, and they actually start to blend well with the rest of the choir, but the flute section seems to be beyond reproach. Beca rolls her eyes at the dramatics of the section leader as she berates them in the middle of practice and calls for 6 A.M. practices every day for the next week (but to be honest they could use the practice).

Throughout the practices, Beca gets glimpses of Chloe Beale staring at her. _Why does she keep looking at me?_ Beca asks herself. _I wonder if I have something in my teeth._

At the first available pause in the practice, Beca smiles into the chrome on her drum set, but her teeth are free of debris. Beca tries to keep her eyes off of Chloe, but, having no self control, she looks over at Chloe in a moment of weakness and finds her looking right back at her. They make eye contact for longer than two people who are practically strangers typically do. Her hands falter, and her rhythm becomes so off that the band director silences everyone and has them start again at the top of the page. Beca looks back at Chloe, embarrassed, and her face turns beet red when she sees Chloe look away and giggle. She wants to crawl into a hole and never come out.

Practice ends quickly without another hitch, and Beca desperately hopes everyone has forgotten about her mistake now that practice is over. She tries to tell herself that she doesn't care what any of these band nerds think, but the embarrassment of messing up the entire band and chorus is overpowering her usual apathetic attitude. 

As she gathers her things, she wastes time so she doesn’t have to walk out in the large crowd and make pointless conversation or relive that shitshow of a practice. She stuffs her drumsticks into a small bag, and, as she gathers her backpack and other things from the floor, she looks up to see Chloe Beale approaching. _I cannot deal with Miss Sunshine and Rainbows after a practice like that_ , she thinks as Chloe advances toward her. 

“How are you so good at drumming?” Chloe asks innocently with a smile so bright it could blind a person if they looked directly at it.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Beca laughed, “I screwed up the entire band when I messed up.”

“Okay, fair enough. But it was only because I distracted you. I didn’t mean to stare, but sometimes I look over at you, and I just get mesmerized by how good you are. I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says with a soft smile and a far-off look in her eyes as if she is replaying Beca’s drumming in her head. She snaps back into reality, and her smile intensifies.

A slight blush brushes across Beca’s cheeks. “Thanks, but, I mean, I’m really nothing special. I promise. Just your average high school drummer, I guess.” Beca looks at the ground as she speaks, embarrassed to have the conversation focused on her.

“I’d say you’re much more than that,” Chloe adds with a wink. 

Beca smiles, shakes her head, and takes a few steps toward the edge of the stage as she hoists her backpack onto her back. Chloe follows her step for step, and the two walk down the steps and out of the auditorium together. 

They exit the auditorium and take no more than five steps before they see two boys coming through the doors at the other end of the hallway. 

“Shit!” Chloe whispers as she grabs Beca’s hand and the two girls dart into the computer lab on the left side of the hall. 

“Be really quiet. Sorry, I’ll explain in a minute.” Chloe whispers.

Beca looks down at her hand, her fingers still wrapped in Chloe’s. Chloe sees Beca look down by the dim light of the computers and immediately releases her hand, the blush on Chloe’s cheeks undetectable in the dark room. Chloe peeks out the window and sees the two boys walk past, never noticing the girls behind the door.

“Okay good. They’re gone,” Chloe says with a relieved look on her face.

“Care to explain what that was about?” Beca asks, sitting on the edge of a computer table.

Chloe glances up at the ceiling looking worried. “Okay, well, that was Robby Jordan, and he asked me to get ice cream with him three times last week and again on Monday, and I keep turning him down. I figure it’s better to avoid him than have to go through the embarrassment all over again.” Chloe looks more tense than Beca has ever seen the typically happy-go-lucky girl.

“You know, Beale, you hiding from people in random computer labs might be ruining your sweet-as-sugar reputation,” Beca says with a smirk, joking to lighten Chloe’s mood.

“I know. I really want to be nice to him, but he knows I’m dating Tom,” Chloe continues, somehow looking more worried than before, “I keep trying to be gentle, but Tom found out before practice on Monday, and he was really upset about it. I just don’t want to make him mad. He doesn’t need to be distracted by something stupid going on with me; the soccer team has some really big games coming up. I’d rather just keep my distance from Robby and avoid it all completely.”

The fight Beca witnessed on Monday flashes quickly through her mind, but she decides not to let Chloe know she saw that, not wanting her to embarrass her or have her think she was eavesdropping.

“Dude, no. I was just joking. Robby’s a jerk for putting you in that situation when he knows you have a boyfriend. Don’t worry about him,” She says with an earnest smile, wanting Chloe to know she’s being sincere.

Beca hops off of the table and heads toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. If I spend much more time at school on a Friday afternoon I’ll probably start breaking out into hives.”

She opens the door and looks both ways to make sure the coast is clear. They walk down the hall in the same direction. “Which way are you going?” Chloe asks when they reach the point where three halls intersect.

“Oh, I’m just heading out the lunchroom door and down Kennesaw. My house isn’t far, so I usually just walk home from school.” Beca answered.

“Me too, actually. Lets go!” Chloe says, looking excited to have a partner for her walk home. The two set off out the door and down the street. Chloe asks what Beca thinks must be more than three, maybe four, hundred questions. Beca answers some, but not all of them. She never has been the type of person to talk a lot about herself or tell other people about her life, but somehow talking to Chloe is easy.

“So how’d you become a drummer, anyway?”

Beca pauses, not knowing if she wants to start a potentially long story, but she decides to proceed anyway. “Well, I always drummed around the house with whatever I could get my hands on: spoons, pens, sticks. There was this one time with paint brushes. That one didn’t end well. When I got into sixth grade, my mom signed me up for band. I know she meant well and she wanted me to take a class doing something I would like, but it was probably just as much for the sake of her silverware,” Beca said with a hearty laugh. Chloe laughed along and seemed to be enjoying her story, so she continued. “My dad left right after I started sixth grade. Cash was always tight, but my mom saved up for a year and bought me my very own drum kit for Christmas in seventh grade. It was the best present I could’ve ever gotten, and it made me really fall in love with drumming. I still drum with the band and on my drums at home, but making mixes on my laptop is more my thing now. When I found out about mixing, it took my love for making beats to the next level. I had to save up for a long time, but when I finally had enough money to buy some mixing equipment it changed my life; it made me realize that I want to become a music producer after high school.”

Beca finishes her story and goes quiet, walking in silence and letting Chloe ponder over her words. She feels like she’s been rambling, but she also feels an unusual lightness after telling Chloe something so personal. She can’t put her finger on what exactly made her open up to someone with whom she’d had a total of only two conversations, but it isn’t a terrible feeling. Just different.

They walk and chat until Beca stops on the sidewalk in front of a small cottage-style house with beautiful rows of blue hydrangeas in two flower beds bordering the house. 

“This is me,” Beca says very matter-of-factly. 

“This is where you live?” Chloe asks in disbelief. 

“Um...yes?” Beca says, not knowing what to make of Chloe’s tone. 

“I live like two houses behind you! I bet you can see my house from your backyard!” Chloe leaves the sidewalk and walks into the grass and to the backyard. They both look through the single line of trees, and Chloe points to a large house on the next street over. The house is huge and looks over-the-top nice. 

“That’s my house! I can’t believe we live so close together and didn’t even know it.” Beca honestly can’t believe it either. She didn’t make it a point to get to know her neighbors, but she did wonder how someone like Chloe Beale could live so close to her and she never know it. 

“You could let an entire football team live in that house and still have your own bathroom,” Beca says dryly with wide eyes and raised eyebrows as she looks up at the house, the top of the house visible even above the trees. 

“Thanks, but, I mean, it’s really nothing special. I promise. Just your average house, I guess,” Chloe says, playfully mocking Beca’s words from earlier. Chloe flits across the rest of the yard and through the trees toward her house. She shouts over her shoulder, “see you at practice on Monday,” only looking back to wink, and then she’s gone.

* * *

Beca flops down onto her bed and lets out a dramatic sigh. It’s been two days since she and Chloe walked home together, and she hasn’t been able to get her off her mind all weekend. The memory of her hand in Chloe’s and the way it made her feel runs through her mind on a loop. She replays their conversation over and over again; she can’t stop thinking about the way Chloe listened to her talk about drumming and mixing, never once interrupting and seeming to enjoy hearing what Beca had to say. She remembers feeling like Chloe asked so many questions, not to fill the dead air, but because she was genuinely interested in her life. 

Beca shakes her head and rolls over, trying to rid herself of the feeling she keeps getting as she thinks about how beautiful Chloe looked as the wind blew through her bright red hair or the way Chloe looked back and winked at her.

She gets up and grabs her drumsticks, slamming herself down onto the stool behind her drum set. She starts to drum loudly, trying desperately to drown out the voices in her head telling her to run away from Chloe and every emotion and feeling that surrounds her. 

I’ve really gotta stop. I’m being gross. This girl was just being nice to me, and here I am being a full-on mess on a Sunday afternoon. I don’t even know her. And she has a boyfriend! If she was so distraught about Robby Jordan asking her out, I’m sure she would love to find out the that I haven’t been able to get her out of my head after the first conversation we’ve had since the third grade. This is ridiculous. 

Beca drums louder and faster until she realizes she’s out of breath and sweating. She apparently can’t keep a steady beat in her current state, but it doesn’t matter; it’s not helping, anyway. Thoughts of Chloe somehow fight through the mind numbing sound of her drumsticks clamoring over the drums and crashing over the cymbals.

Okay. Whatever. I’ve been overthinking all of this all weekend. I’m going to sleep, and when I wake up, I’m not thinking about Chloe anymore. I don’t want anything more than a friendship with her. Maybe not even that. We can go back to being strangers for all I care. She doesn’t need me looking at her the way all the boys at school do; she gets enough of that from them. So she climbs back into bed and shuts her eyes tight, wanting to fall asleep without another thought. She falls asleep quickly even though the clock on her bedside table only reads 8:17pm.

Beca jumps out of sleep when her alarm sounds the next morning, the blaring noise of the alarm shocking her into consciousness. She gets up and heads to the coffee maker, caffeine being the only thing that ever gets her through her first three classes. After getting ready, she heads off to school and arrives just in time. The school day breezes by, and Beca doesn’t think of Chloe at all until practice that afternoon. Beca is distracted by Chloe throughout practice, but it isn’t so bad that she can’t keep her rhythm. She feels Chloe’s eyes on her while she drums, and she can’t contain her smile. After practice, the two walk home together again.

Without realizing it, the two have made an unspoken rule. They walk home together every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and even on some days when they don’t have practice. As the practices progress, so does their friendship. Chloe tells Beca about her recent troubles with Tom. She tells her that around everyone else, he acts like they have the perfect relationship, but in private, he’s very controlling. He monopolizes her time when he’s not at soccer, and he gets mad if another guy so much as likes one of her pictures on instagram. Chloe tries to hide how he makes her feel, but Beca can see through it.

“You know you don’t have to take that shit, right? That doesn’t sound like a loving relationship to me. It sounds like he’s a jerk. You deserve better than that,” Beca says at a break in Chloe’s story.

“I know, but I really do love him. He hasn’t always been like this. I know he loves me, and I think he’s just being protective,” Chloe says sheepishly. Beca can tell it’s more serious than Chloe lets on, and she thinks Chloe knows it too, but she decides not to push any further, at least for today.

Chloe changes the subject and asks Beca questions about her family. Beca can feel Chloe trying to break down her walls, and she wants to let her in, but after years of reinforcement, she’s hesitant to open up. Even to Chloe. It’s nothing against her. She’s actually the only person Beca has even thought about opening up to in years.Chloe has become Beca’s closest friend since sixth grade when her best friend moved away and her dad left and she shut everyone out. Beca decided way back then to not let anyone get too close so it wouldn’t hurt when they inevitably left. Her only other real friend is Jesse Swanson, but they don’t have the kind of conversations that she and Chloe have. They’re in band together, so they mostly just play drums together, and sometimes Jesse comes over on the weekends to play video games with Beca. Maybe it’s just that she’s a girl or that Chloe is more in tune with her emotions or something, but whatever it is, it’s different. And Beca is actually starting to like it.

The route that the two girls walk home each day changes. They sometimes arrive at Beca’s first. Other times, they go down Chloe’s street first, and Beca walks through the yard of Chloe’s across the street neighbor, a sweet elderly lady named Mrs. Mayfield, to get to her house. On days like today when the weather is nice, they take the long way home and go through the park and walk around the lake. Beca starts to make sure she has quarters every morning before she leaves the house just in case they go to the park because she loves seeing how excited Chloe gets to feed the ducks. 

Beca jams a quarter into the old machine and turns the crank to dispense two handfuls of duck food, and they both double over with laughter as they try to contain it in their hands but fail as some of it falls onto the ground. They walk around the pond, feeding the ducks and talking and laughing and enjoying each other’s company. Beca can’t remember the last time she just purely enjoyed someone’s company like she enjoys Chloe’s. She’s content with walking with her and not even talking; just being with her is enough.

When all the ducks swim away with full bellies, they continue on their path home. From the park, they arrive at Chloe’s house first, and she pauses on the sidewalk in front of her house. “Hey, do you want to come in and hang out? We could work on that history project Mr. Whitehead assigned a few weeks ago since it’s due on Monday. You have him for history, right?” 

Beca debates on whether or not to go inside with Chloe. She feels nervous to take their friendship from their daily walks home to becoming friends who hang out at each other's houses. She does have that stupid project due on Monday, though, so she agrees, and they head inside.

As the door opens into the kitchen, Beca is greeted with the smell of fresh flowers and the sight of dark cherry hardwood floors and granite countertops. Beca is astounded. Her mom works hard to provide the best home and meet every need that her daughter requires, but none of it could ever compare to this. This is certainly the nicest house Beca’s ever set foot in, but Chloe seems unfazed (which is what you’d expect since she lives in this palace). 

She opens up the refrigerator, grabs two sodas, takes a bag of popcorn from the pantry, and places it in the microwave to start popping. She gives Beca her drink, and they stand around waiting on the popcorn to cook. Beca walks around the counter to admire the pictures on the fridge. Some are pictures of Chloe and her brothers, some of the cutest puppy Beca has ever seen, and one particularly adorable photo of Chloe that she can’t help but pick up. She’s hanging upside down on a bar on the swingset which, presumably, used to occupy their backyard. With her bright red hair hanging down almost to the ground and her two front teeth missing, she’s smiling with the biggest smile, and Beca can’t help but smirk and let out a little chuckle. Chloe steps in front of her and snatches the photo from her fingers. “Don’t laugh at me. I was adorable,” Chloe says, feigning anger. 

“I’m not laughing at you, Beale. Who wouldn’t smile while looking at that face? Pure cuteness.” Beca says while tapping Chloe on the top of her nose. Did I just do that? That was weird. Who am I? I need to calm down. I can’t let this girl get in my head again.

Chloe smiles and shakes her head, her cheeks turning pink as she walks to the microwave. She grabs the steaming bag of popcorn, dumps it into a bowl, and heads down the hall and up the stairs with Beca following closely behind. 

As they enter Chloe’s room, Beca sees a giant king size bed with a fluffy yellow and grey duvet and more pillows than any one person should have on their bed (but of course Chloe would be that person who sleeps with four pillows and uses eight more just for decoration). The room is huge but somehow still cozy. It’s light and bright with yellows and whites which come across as very Chloe. 

She crawls onto her bed amongst the pillows, settles in around them, and pats the other side of the bed to motion for Beca to come and sit beside her. The bed is gloriously soft and exceedingly enormous; it’s big enough for the both of them, their laptops and textbooks, the twelve pillows, and the bowl of popcorn between them. 

When Beca settles in, she and Chloe snack on the popcorn and work on their history projects. When Beca reaches for a handful of popcorn, her hand brushes Chloe’s hand, and their hands linger there together. She has to cough to stifle the small gasp she lets out when they touch. It’s as if the spark that Beca tried to deny feeling when Chloe held her hand in the computer lab has all of a sudden become a gasoline-fueled fire. Chloe smiles a knowing smile but never looks away from her textbook.

Instead of reading about the War of 1812, Chloe is all Beca can think about. She sits and ponders over how nice it is to have such a great friend. A real friend who wants to hang out with her and is actually interested when she talks about things that no one else in her life ever seemed to care to listen to. And someone who doesn’t bore her to tears when she has to listen to them talk for more than three minutes. She enjoys Chloe’s company and has so quickly come to cherish their friendship. 

No. I can’t do this. I won’t. I won’t ruin this friendship and the one good thing I have in my life for some stupid feelings that she would never reciprocate. 

So she tries to put it out of her mind. To put Chloe out of her mind. Which was harder than it sounds since she is sitting all of 36 inches away from the girl. She stares blankly at her textbook for about ten minutes, praying she can think of anything other than Chloe and the fact that all she wants to do is lean over and kiss her, but she can’t. So she stands up.

“Oh, I forgot, my mom needs me to go to this thing with her. I’d better get going.” Beca says nervously, already shoving her school supplies into her backpack.

“Are you sure?” Chloe asks with a defeated look on her face. “We’ve barely even gotten started.”

Beca feels a physical pain when she sees the sadness on Chloe’s face, but it doesn’t stop her from going. Leaving was the only thing her dad ever taught her. 

“I’ll see you at practice on Friday,” Beca says with a forced smile on her face. She walked down the stairs and out the front door. She tore through Mrs. Mayfield’s yard, not even speaking to the woman who was outside sweeping her porch. 

She didn’t stop until she reached her drum set. Drumming had become the way she knew how to deal with her emotions. She grabs her drumsticks and starts pounding the drums with more force than she ever had before. She notices how hard it is for her to see because of how much her eyes are watering (she obviously isn’t crying), but it doesn’t matter; she could play these drums in the dark. 

She plays until her body hurts and her neighbor’s dog won’t quit howling. She flings herself down onto her bed since she doesn’t know how else to cope other than sleeping. 

This isn’t happening. I can’t have feelings for Chloe Beale. Every boy in school has feelings for her, and it’ll ruin our friendship. What would she even think if she knew that’s how I felt? She’d probably think I’m disgusting. 

Beca continues her internal pity party for at least an hour, thoughts running back and forth through her mind. She desperately hopes that sleep will come soon. It does.

* * *

It’d been over a week since Beca started distancing herself from Chloe. She skipped practice on Friday and Monday to avoid her completely. Chloe texted Beca asking why she wasn’t there, but Beca dismissed her both times, saying she wasn’t feeling well. After a text from her band director telling her to be at the next practice or he was demoting her from head of the percussion section to triangle player, she decided to go to the Wednesday’s practice. When it was over, she rushed out of the auditorium. She didn’t want Chloe to wait around, so she texted her to say she was making up a test for her Dr. Lee’s biology class, but she just took a different route and headed home. 

If I can just keep my distance long enough to get rid of these stupid feelings, we can go back to the way we were, Beca thinks, knowing that ignoring Chloe is the reason she’s been so miserable for the past week. 

On Friday, Beca doesn’t have a plan for avoiding Chloe (and if she’s honest she really doesn’t want to), but she decides to wing it and just escape through the back door behind the stage. Beca takes a few steps, and Chloe immediately spots her and calls out to her. 

“Beca! Wait up!” Chloe shouts over the crowd of bustling band members in her way. Beca turns and walks toward Chloe, deciding that maybe one walk home won’t hurt. She can’t blow her off for an entire week and not raise Chloe’s suspicions. The two girls breeze through the double doors and exit the auditorium. 

Beca notices that Chloe seems off, but she can’t put her finger on what seems to be bothering her. 

“Hey, Chlo, is something wro—“ The two stop dead in their tracks, staring at the scene in front of him. The halls were littered with papers. On the floor, taped to the walls, hanging out of lockers. They were everywhere. Chloe bends down to pick one up, and a single tear escapes her eye as she stares down at the photograph. 

Beca bolts into action. She gathers every paper she can find, ripping them from the lockers and tearing them off the walls, tears welling up in her eyes. Beca tries, but the damage is done. She rushes back to Chloe’s side. 

“It isn’t even me,” Beca hears Chloe say softly as her knees give out. Beca catches her and guides her to the ground, helping her lean back onto the lockers. Beca stares at the pictures with red hot rage. The papers show Chloe’s head poorly photoshopped onto an almost naked body. The photoshop job is one of the worst Beca’s ever seen, but there’s no doubt there’ll be people who believe it’s real. 

Beca is fuming, needing to take out her anger on whoever did this. She doesn’t need to know why, she just needs to know who. 

“Who did this?” Beca asks sharply, her anger apparent in her voice. 

Chloe lets out a sob, and Beca softens, crawling into the place beside Chloe and letting her lay her head on her shoulder. The anger can wait. Chloe needs her here. 

They stay like that for a long time, Chloe’s head on Beca’s shoulder and Beca rubbing Chloe’s hand back and forth with her thumb to calm her down. They sit in silence, and after a while, Chloe straightens up and eventually stands. She holds out her hand and helps Beca up, the two never speaking a word, and they set off toward home. 

They walk in silence for a long time until Chloe finally speaks, 

“It was Tom.”

“Tom did that? What? Why would he—,”

“We broke up this morning,” Chloe cuts Beca off to explain, “Or I broke up with him, I guess I should say. He saw me talking to Robby Jordan this morning, and he flipped. Nothing was even happening. I would never do that, and Robby hasn’t bothered me about going out with him in weeks. I was just asking him for the anatomy notes that I missed on Monday when I went to the dentist, but Tom didn’t care. He wouldn’t even let me explain. He told me I was embarrassing him in front of the whole school by flirting with other guys and called me a slut in front of his friends. I figured that would be the end of it, but I guess not,” Chloe says quietly as she trails off. 

“I swear to God I’m going to beat his fucking face in the first chance I get.” Beca’s anger is starting to boil over.

Chloe grabs Beca’s hand and holds it, partly to force her fist to unclench, and partly just to be in contact with her. 

“Don’t. He doesn’t deserve your anger. Or mine for that matter. I’m through with that asshole. For good.” Chloe looks hopeful for the first time since they left the school. 

“How are you even semi-okay after what just happened?” Beca asks, genuinely curious. 

“I realized a couple of weeks ago that I deserve better than him. The Tom that hung those pictures on the walls isn’t the Tom I fell in love with, and it doesn’t seem like he’s ever coming back. You told me that I didn’t have to take his shit anymore and that I deserved better. I didn’t believe it when you said it, but the next time I was standing in the grocery store parking lot getting yelled at for something I didn’t even do by someone who claimed to love me, I remembered. And I believed it. I still do.”

Beca looked over at Chloe, and they both smiled at each other through tear-filled eyes. 

“I knew I was right all along,” Beca says with a smirk, “You deserve the world, Beale.” She gives a light squeeze to Chloe’s hand that’s still holding her own. 

“I deserve someone like you,” Chloe says very matter-of-factly. 

And just like that, the voices in Beca’s head stop. All of the voices that, although more quiet than they were the previous week, were still yelling at her telling her to run or hide or do anything to stop her feelings for Chloe had been silenced at the sound of those five words. 

“What?” Beca releases Chloe’s hand and stops walking, dumbfounded. 

“You show me more love every day in the little things you do than Tom ever did. It really is just the little things. You listen to me babble on about God knows what every single day, and you always bring quarters so we can feed the ducks. Nobody has that many quarters just by coincidence. Nobody.” 

Beca laughs as a light blush spreads across her cheeks. 

“You make me feel wanted and appreciated and cared for and special, and that’s all i could ever want. In a friendship but also in a relationship. I actually realized it when you left my house in a rush last week, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Everyday this week I’ve walked home from school alone and everyday I’ve thought about how much I miss you being with me, all while dreading having to see Tom after soccer practice. I just realized that you treat me better than he does, and we aren’t even dating.”

Beca grins and grabs Chloe’s hand once more, lacing their fingers together, “Well, I think we might be able to arrange something like that.”


End file.
